Commitment is such a powerful concept

Today I had a frustrating and draining day at work. The reason? Lack of commitment to the goals we had "agreed to." Today I observed how frustrating life can be when we say we commit to things, but we really don't. I also observed the power of commitment in achieving things.

The task given to us by my boss was clear: submit a budget that is 5% below the financial target given, so that we can have some additional money to invest for the future. I had two roles with this assignment, I needed to submit a budget as such and I needed to facilitate the whole process for the department. My managers and I met several times with the intention of making it 5% below. They came up with many creative ways to do it, they worked well with each other, and with vendors. At the end, they did it and made it look easy, although it was not. The areas under some of my peers met, talked about it, sincerely tried, but kept coming up with amounts that were 5% to 10% over budget since the consequences were so great.

Well, today was the big meeting to review our budgets and recommendations. Most of the day was extremely frustrating because many managers were way over budget and not ready to have the conversation. Then the other Directors and I met outside, changed the agenda, had separate meetings with our staff, and came back 45 minutes later with a balanced budget. I can't begin to explain how many weeks we had been working on this unsuccessfully, and yet, it was fixed so quickly. Granted, it was not an easy task, but why did we get it done so quickly? I don't believe the managers were fully committed until those last 45 minutes. They wanted to make it, but were not completely there.  Once there was a real commitment, they found a way to do it.

This made me think about what fantastic things we can accomplish when we are completely and passionately committed to something. I'm interested in helping the homeless, but I'm not as committed as Dorothy Day was. I'm interested in living simply, but not as committed as St. Francis was. I'm desiring to love God dearly, but not as committed as St. Therese was. Am I committed to world peace, or just to protest war? Am I committed to protecting life or simply to talk about it or to hope for tougher legislation. Am I committed to spiritual growth? to holiness? to excellent health? to a loving and ever lasting marriage? to being a good father?

I believe it is important to have just a few areas that we are passionately committed to. Those are the few things in which we are truly going to make a difference.

What are you passionately committed to?

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Success

Comments

[ukok]

How insightful I always find your posts :)

I agree that it is easy to vocalise committment, but backing it up with actions is another matter entirely.

It's one of the reasons I can't shift all this flab...I don't want it enough. I'm not motivated enough, I'm not really prepared to do what it takes...if I was, I wouldn't be in this mess!

God Bless.

[Steve Bogner]

There seem to me to be two different ways people commit - negative & positive. The negative commitment is when you are avoiding a negative outcome; positive commitment is when you are trying to achieve a positive outcome. Positive commitment is much more powerful, and I try to find ways to help people see that.

Running *towards* something is more fun than running *from* something. It's sort of like the difference between playing defense vs. offense. It's more fun to score a goal than block one.

[Lisa]

I like the thought of being committed to the commitment. Ukok, I have the same problem committing to losing my bulk. Obviously, I've not yet committed to commit.

[Hector]

Lisa and ukok, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I asked my lovely wife "Are we commited to good health?" She said yes, but I don't think we are. We would like to have good health and we are OK, but we are not commited. Otherwise we (I...) wouldn't be eating as many sweets, we would be running every night, and getting more sleep. For many of the things we wish for we know exactly what to do and things are within our control to do, we just don't want them bad enough. I think this is a critical concept to accomplishing our goals.

Steve, thanks for your comments. I had not thought about negative commitment. The examples I can come up with are related to not taking risks. People commited to not die in an airplane crash or not getting a cold so they never touh things n public. That's an interesting concept...